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Al Gore? Who’s he? Where’s he? Oh, you mean the silent guy in the suit over there looking like the second wheel on a unicycle? The guy running for president but unable to get a word in edgewise because the mayor of New York will not shut up? Yeah, that guy.

“Dukakis is … acceptable,” Koch says through pursed lips, again in response to no question. “Acceptable. But he …” Koch points to Gore. “He has the potential for greatness.”

The “he,” Gore, brightens at the mention of his name and takes a half-step forward like an actor who has been waiting in the wings and has finally heard his cue.

“He took me to a deli on the lower East Side,” Gore begins. “And we had pickles. Different kinds of pickles. They were called, uh … uh …”

“Sours and half-sours,” Koch says and then winks at the reporters as if to say: Goyim. What can you do?

This being New York where anything can happen and does on a daily basis, McGeorge Bundy, one of John F. Kennedy’s best and brightest, and now a professor of history at New York University, innocently walks by on his way down into the subway.

Koch grabs him and demands a vote for Gore.

“I’m from Massachusetts,” Bundy says, apologetically. In other words, he’s for Dukakis.

Koch turns his back on him. “So? We can lose one vote,” he says.

They will end up losing more than one. Dukakis will take New York by 51 percent, Jackson will get 37 percent (winning New York City in the process) and Gore will get 10 percent. But in the preceding week, Gore secretly has been calling Jesse Jackson at night and apologizing for Koch. Jackson is mollified. Gore has shown respect.

Koch is unrepentant. “You cannot show me a single sentence that wasn’t legitimate and truthful,” he tells reporters. And then he has a rare moment of introspection.

“Maybe I would package it better,” he says.

Ed Koch died Friday at age 88. His funeral was held Monday. Some are trying to have the corner at 77th and Lexington named for him. Famous political leaders said fine things about him.

Understandably, but uncharacteristically, Ed Koch was silent.

Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this column mistakenly said the subway station at 77th and Lexington was officially named for Koch.